Digital Diplomacy: The Impact of the Internet on International R. U. K. Foreign & Commonwealth OfficeJuly 1, 2008 OII Working Paper No. 16 Abstract: International relations have always been profoundly affected by technology. The Internet - 20 years young - is having just such a profound impact. It constitutes, along with the IT systems it connects, a quantum leap in people's ability to communicate both one-to-one and one-to-many. Number of Pages in PDF File: 20 Keywords: Internet, international relations, government, policy working papers series Suggested Citation Westcott, Nicholas, Digital Diplomacy: The Impact of the Internet on International Relations (July 1, 2008).
Diplomacy 2.0. There is much talk in the air – especially in Britain and the United States – about reinventing diplomacy for the 21st century. Both US secretary of state Hillary Clinton and the Conservative leader, David Cameron, have spoken recently of a new synthesis of defence, diplomacy and development, noting that recent American and British foreign policy has placed too much emphasis on the first element at the expense of the latter two. Meanwhile, the European Union has established a new foreign-policy apparatus called the European External Action Service (EEAS), which is meant to represent the common interests of all 27 of the EU's member states.
The lines of authority between the new Euro-diplomats and existing national foreign ministries are still unclear; but the EEAS is, nonetheless, a fact. Regionalism has moved to the foreground of global politics – except in the US, where the two are seen as antithetical. Neither individuals nor nations have identical interests, however. The Rise of Public Diplomacy 2.0. The Rise of Public Diplomacy 2.0 Colleen Graffy ack in December 2006, Time magazine did something gutsy.
It announced that its vaunted “Person of the Year” was not a politician, personality, or pundit but… you. The cover of the magazine was an iMac with a mirrored strip reflecting the reader as a representative of the millions who make up the grand social experiment that is user-generated content for Facebook, blogging, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, Wikipedia and more.
Silicon Valley consultants refer to this new revolution as “Web 2.0”—as if the World Wide Web had just downloaded a new software update. Public diplomacy is the art of communicating a country’s policies, values and culture to the people of another nation. The “more” is that PD 2.0 requires a new approach by the State Department, and a new type of Foreign Service officer. From closed system to open system The challenge during the Cold War era was to find ways of getting information from the outside world into a closed system.